Black Sabbath - Born Again

Ok. I just compared both, and I think you are right. The WG does sound better (I am glad I picked one up a while back). It is sort of like the WB Sabotage compared to the 2009 remaster. The 2009 has more bass and is more muddy, at least to me. I just compared those two earlier tonight.

 

I need to compare the other DE's someday.

 

I totally agree. This being my favorite Sabbath album (Born Again), I was really excited for this to come out. The DE sounds incredibly muddy to me and really drowns out one of the great things about this album.....Bill Ward's powerful snare sound. I'll keep it for the bonus tracks, even though I've already had them on bootlegs over the years.

One thing that always amazes me, is that I never tire of these songs. I got burned out on much of the earlier Sabbath over the years, but it's nearly impossible for me to throw on Born Again without listening to the whole damn album.

 

There are "rough mix" discs out there that sound much better than any of the currently available official releases IMO.

 

It really is up there with the classic Sabbath. Period. Even more than Dio era (which was amazing in it's own right but simply felt like a different band).

 

I see that the Japanese original pressings are also mastered by Hans Brethouwer. I guess the WG and JPN are the same. Is this the best we have for the original mix?

 

The bottle took a beating
Born Again has turned 30, and black-sabbath.com is celebrating the anniversary with an extended article, which includes the cover art story straight from its author Steve Joule, among many other things:

OK let’s put this baby to rest once and for all. The Black Sabbath ‘Born Again’ album sleeve was designed under extraordinary circumstances; basically what had happened was that Sharon and Ozzy had split very acrimoniously from her fathers (Don Arden) management and record label. He subsequently decided that he would wreak his revenge by making Black Sabbath (whom he managed) the best heavy metal band in the world, which, of course they are but back then in the early ’80′s they weren’t quite the International megastars that they had been in the ’70′s. His plans included recruiting Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, getting Bill Ward back in on drums and stealing as many of Sharon and Ozzy’s team as possible and as I was designing Ozzys sleeves at the time I of course got asked to submit some rough designs. As I didn’t want to lose my gig with the Osbourne’s I thought the best thing to do would be to put some ridiculous and obvious designs down on paper, submit them and then get the beers in with the rejection fee, but oh no, life ain’t that easy. In all I think there were four rough ideas that were given to the management and band to peruse (unfortunately I no longer have the roughs as I would love to see just how bad the other three were as sadly my booze and drug addled brain no longer remembers that far back), anyway one of the ideas was of course the baby and the first image of a baby that I found was from the front cover of a 1968 magazine called ‘Mind Alive’ that my parents has bought me as a child in order to further my education, so in reality I say blame my parents for the whole sorry mess. I then took some black and white photocopies of the image (the picture is credited to ‘Rizzoli Press’) that I overexposed, stuck the horns, nails, fangs into the equation, used the most outrageous colour combination that acid could buy, bastardised a bit of the Olde English typeface and sat back, shook my head and chuckled.
The story goes that at the meeting Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were present but no Ian Gillan or Bill Ward. Tony loved it and Geezer, so I’m reliably informed, looked at it and in his best Brummie accent said, “It’s ****. but it’s ****ing great!” Don not only loved it but had already decided that a Born Again baby costume was to be made for a suitable midget who was going to wear it and be part of the now infamous ‘Born Again Tour’. So suddenly I find myself having to do the bloody thing. I was also offered a ridiculous amount of money (about twice as much as I was being paid for an Ozzy sleeve design) if I could deliver finished artwork for front, back and inner sleeve by a certain date. As the dreaded day drew nearer and nearer I kept putting off doing it again and again until finally the day before I sprang into action with the help of a neighbour, (Steve ‘Fingers’ Barrett) a bottle of Jack Daniels and the filthiest speed that money could buy on the streets of South East London and we bashed the whole thing out in a night, including hand lettering all the lyrics, delivered it the next day where upon I received my financial reward. But that wasn’t the end of it oh no, when Gillan finally got to see a finished sleeve he hated it with a vengeance and hence the now famous quote “I looked at the cover and puked!” Not wanting to sound bitchy but over the years I’ve said the same thing about most of Gillan’s album sleeves. He also allegedly threw a box of 25 copies of the album out of his window. Gillan might have hated it but Max Cavelera (Sepultura, Soulfly) and Glen Benton (Deicide) have both gone on record saying that it is their favourite album sleeve.

Read more on black-sabbath.com.

 

Just listened to the album, it's got some killer stuff!

 

This is one of my favorite Black Sabbath albums. The DE is pretty nice sounding as well.

 

Born Again never seems to get the respect it deserves. "Disturbing the Priest," "Zero the Hero," and the title track should all be considered Sabbath classics.

There's more to Born Again than the music. There's the famously awful album cover. The return of Bill Ward. The Stonehenge fiasco. The true story of "Trashed." The unlikely meeting of Black Sabbath and a priest.

It's been over 30 years since Ian Gillan fronted Sabbath. It's time to revisit Born Again!

Black Sabbath: Revisiting Born Again – Green and Black Music »

 

I love the album and the cover. I think it fits the music quite well.

 

One of my favorites! Digital B**** and Hot Line are my favorite songs from it.

 

It's one of my favorite album covers of all time!

 

In an interesting bit of trivia, the below image from an Italian magazine from 1968 was manipulated to create the Born Again album cover. The individual would be about my age. I wonder what s/he looks like now and what s/he thinks of the album cover? They also recycled the song 'Trashed" from an Ian Gillan Band album. I've never heard the original.

 

Inspired album.

 

Actually used by Depeche Mode first...in 1981.

 

I agree... I think it's always been a massively underappreciated album. Disturbing The Priest is a classic and Zero The Hero has a monstrous riff grinding away. And I too love the cover. One of my all-time favourites. So to the OP, yes, I'm with you!

 

Is there any "lost tracks" from those sessions that got released?

 

Good album. Several great tunes, although Digital Bitch is cringe-worthy.

 

A song called "The Fallen." It should have made the album. Killer track!

 

"Zero the Hero"'s riff has probably been lifted about 5 times for significant hard rock tunes. Look no further than "Paradise City" by G'n'R for one example.

Born Again is a great, but flawed, example of a crazy combination of hard rock giants collaborating. I've always loved the album, but I can understand others aversion to it. The original mix sounds like utter crap.

 

The "deluxe version" included the rare cuts..
"The Fallen" and extended version of Stonehenge

Black Sabbath STONEHENGE Extended version »

 

Underrated. Zero the Hero features Tony's best solo imo. And the title track is great.

 

I own the deluxe version. I've always favored Ozzy era, but this album stomps pretty hard in its own way!!

 

There's also a version of Black Sabbath playing "Smoke on the Water." Not sure how I feel about that one.